Though I Walk Through The Valley of the Shadow of Death
by FluffyGlitterPantsDragon
Summary: M/M Dan finds out he has died and gone to Hell. Lucifer finds he has to intervein. Season 4 Spoilers. Tags: Douchifer, Hell Loops, Hell, I don't know what I'm doing, Violence, Angst, a bit of smut, Slave Fic, Dark Humor, Torture, I have no idea how this will end and I'm writing it. Trigger Warnings, Hurt/Comfort, Possible sad ending.
1. Chapter 1

"Daniel?"

The subject responded slowly, looking up at him through the glare of the sun. "Lucifer? I haven't seen you in weeks." under his breath, he added, "dick."

He was crouched over a body, doing detective things. Dan looked away at the body again. "Chloe could probably use your help here - she keeps calling you, but fuck if I know why after you ran off _again_. Where have you been, man?"

Lucifer put his hands in his pockets, frowning. He looked up at the sunny, blue sky then back down at him. "Why are you here?"

Dan squinted up at him, holding a hand to block the sun, the light cutting harsh lines of shadow this time of day. "This is my case. I actually shouldn't even be here myself; I'm too involved in it. But when has that ever stopped an LAPD assignment?"

"But why do you think that?" Lucifer regarded the body without interest. Another boring case.

"You're really out of the loop, aren't you? I shot this guy while he was running away. It was an accident. A few days ago, he robbed that liquor store over there," he pointed, "then took off. I heard gunshots and saw the clerk in the store go down, so I went after the guy still upright."

He paused. Lucifer waited.

"I told him to stop. He didn't."

"And why would you think someone called me in for _this?"_

Dan gestured, "It's what you do, isn't it? Turn up and provide insight. Maybe I'll get lucky, and this guy shot someone for real."

"But he didn't, did he?"

He thought about it. "You should call Chloe. She'll be pissed if she finds out you were here and didn't. And you should stop running off. Even Trixie asks about you."

Surprise entered his voice for the first time, curious. "The urchin? Really?

"Something about Stir-Friday? Sounded like a knockoff of Taco Tuesday."

Yes. That. It happened a few times. He'd gotten pretty adept at cooking slices of steak just right and everything that went with it. That was before Eve. "Chloe really was your better half."

"Tell me something I don't know."

Lucifer smiled wide. "Pythagoras had a foot fetish. Mostly mine."

"Who?"

Lucifer huffed, "the man credited with the invention of A squared plus B squared equals C squared?"

Dan finally stood, shaking his head. "The theorem guy?"

Lucifer gave him a vaguely impressed look.

"Despite appearances, I did well enough in college to actually help my kid with her homework."

His face fell softly. "Ah. Right. I do hope she'll be alright. At least Maze watching her."

"Trix will be just fine. She's a tough kid, and Chloe said Maze comes over to sit sometimes. She adores Charlie too. Are you actually back in town again or just visiting?"

"Short visit I'm afraid. I've been swamped whipping Hell back into shape. It's a full-time job these days."

"No rest for the wicked? You really should come by the improv class again, to participate. Amenadiel comes by Wednesday nights now when he can get away. We have a lot of fun."

"You sound oddly less angry than the last few times I saw you, Daniel."

Dan bit his lip. "I don't blame you anymore for Charlotte. I did, for a really long time. I'm still not a fan of yours, but even I have to admit there were things beyond your control. Things it honestly wasn't fair of me to blame you for."

Lucifer looked down at the body. "There seem to be some other things you needed to let go of. Do you believe this was your fault?"

"I mean, I could pin it on all on my instincts." He ground his teeth, "I'm so tired of people getting away with things. I was angry when I shot at him, and I shouldn't have been. I dunno. Maybe I'm in the wrong line of work. After Charlotte, I should have stayed on desk duty."

"When did you stop blaming me for her?"

Dan turned and walked away. Lucifer followed. "Right before you left, I think. I talked to Dr. Martin - probably not a good idea either since she's your therapist and it's not good to cross professional lines. But she helped. I'm going to go see her again, today."

"This might sound odd coming from the Devil, but I'm glad you went to her."

Lucifer looked around and snagged a coffee from a tray that someone left behind. He popped the lid off and dumped half his flask into the paper cup. He took a long swallow. "Oh, yes, cold crime scene coffee, straight from the precinct, probably 3 hours or so old. Oddly miss that."

"Why don't you come back anyway? What's the deal this time? Married another hooker?"

"Can't, I'm afraid, no streetwalkers - this, or last time. I really shouldn't even be here at all. I'll probably do quite a bit of drinking later tonight."

He snorted, "You can say that again. I could use a drink myself. Sure, you're helpful sometimes, but I really don't get why you keep hanging on to the Devil persona. I get you're pretty invested in it, but don't you think it's time for something new?"

"Funny you should say that. Now, of all times."

Someone yelled.

A man raised a gun, pointing in their direction.

Dan looked up and leapt, shoving Lucifer out of the way, spilling coffee all over the pavement.

Shots rang out and struck flesh, wet and yielding before steel.

Cops tackled the man, bringing him to the ground. Dan followed, falling to the street, bleeding from multiple strikes.

Lucifer watched, oddly detached. "That was interesting. Did you really save someone or did you just push me out of the way because I'm here now?"

The dead man rose from where he'd been cold for hours, gloating over Dan as he struggled to breathe around the bullet holes.

The shooter who arrived broke free of the uniformed officers and started screaming about how Dan killed his brother, waving his heavy gun in the air and taking aim at Dan one more time.

This wasn't the first time he watched. It was the first time Dan 'saved' him though. The first time, when Lucifer found him, he didn't interfere. He did, however, immediately run out and make sure Chloe was nowhere to be found before returning to see when it began, where it started. He happened to catch Dan near the end of it this time.

Lucifer held out a hand and stopped the charging man from shooting again. He was held there frozen in time while everyone else kept moving. If it continues, the shooter unloads the rest of his clip into Dan and it was a vision Lucifer could do without witnessing this time.

Dan spasmed, bled out, and died again.


	2. Welcome to Hell

The world faded in, like waking up from a dream. Dan stood in evidence lock up. He was holding a bag with a gun in it.

He _knows _he shouldn't be doing this and yet, here he was.

Chloe comes around the corner, looking from his face to the bag and back. Her mouth drops and her eyes flash with anger. "Dan!"

"I'm going to put it back!"

"Why are you even taking it out? Don't you know people are going to get shot because of this? Because of what you're doing?"

She's right.

He doesn't know why she's right, or how he knows it.

She yanks her wedding ring off her finger and throws it at him, hard. It misses him and pings off several shelves, ricocheting far longer than physics would call for. It sounds like a high bell, echoing too long with a sound that made his teeth try to crawl out of his mouth.

But then they did.

Like bugs with exoskeletons of bone, his mouth fell open and they uprooted themselves, one by one, until Dan collapsed on his knees, bleeding from his gums.

It ends. His teeth grow back. He looks up and Chloe is still standing there, holding another ring and getting ready to throw it.

It grows larger in her hand until she has to change her grip to hold it, hanging heavy. She drops it over his neck and it hangs, huge and cold and heavier than lead. "That's how you always felt. I was an obstacle to you, a burden to your career, your life. You never respected me as an equal. Marriage was just a box to check on your 'things to do before 30' list."

He clutches it with his free hand, and it came off his neck, through him like a shadow passing through the light. He stood there, holding it, not putting together why it rested in his hand but came off his neck through flesh. "No, Chloe! I lo-"

But the words stop coming out. He chokes on them, his tongue swells.

He tries to defend himself, to let go of the bag with the gun in it that he still holds, anything, but something strange - _stranger _\- happens.

His throat fills with dread and he turns to something behind him. The real world fades back into nothing as he faces what his brain can only tell him is a beast.

It wears a human face, but it is a beast. It - he - holds a whip and bears a bone-chilling smile. The end of the whip glints in the firelight with shining razor edges. Dan finally drops his ring and evidence bag - the gun is empty of rounds anyway and he doesn't think to consider using it as a club. He bolts for what appears to be a corridor.

He passes a number of pillars as his heart climbs into his throat even while he takes a moment to be thankful for the fact it wasn't quite that literal, this time. He's almost to an intersection and he can see what he guesses is torchlight emanating from the new passages. Chains suddenly shoot from the walls at high speed, wrapping around his wrists and ankles like snakes, tight enough to hurt his joints. The chains bleed thorns, tearing his skin. An entirely unreasonable amount of blood abandons his body through the places the chain wraps too tight.

The whip cracks and strikes a chain above his head, from behind, making sparks fly. The beast growls, a hungry, raw sound of Hell itself.

Red eyes form from the darkness in front of him. They resolve into Lucifer's face, taut with anger. He shouts and his voice reverberates with authority, "_what did I say about this cell?"_

The beast behind Dan screeches, drops the whip and flees in terror. It's so much scarier looking than Lucifer, yet it takes off in the opposite direction like its heels are on fire.

Lucifer starts to duck past Dan, but halts and touches one of the chains - they all drop like water, dissolving into nothing, and Dan falls to the ground with a grunt and a groan of pain. The blood - his blood - remains on the floor in a puddle, staining the bottom of his jeans.

His unlikely rescuer straightens his cuffs, rolls his eyes and mutters, _you're welcome, douche._ His lazy, strolling steps move off behind Dan after the assailant and they vanish.

_What the hell?_ His shirt sleeves are torn to shreds, soaked with his blood. His wrists are _throbbing_ with searing pain, in time with his rapid heartbeat.

A minute later, Dan hears another screech, similar to the first but more strangled. Lucifer returns, holding a _thing_ by the scruff of its neck. He shakes it violently and it flops around like a ragdoll in his relentless grip. "Well?"

Dan, still on the ground, looked up dumbly but Lucifer wasn't talking to him.

The demon, who now appeared to be a lot smaller and much less scary - relatively speaking, as far as demons go - sighed. "Just havin' some fun, boss. Not much to be had around here."

"This is _Hell. _It's not _supposed_ to be fun." Lucifer squeezed its throat while the thing's wings flap around wildly, then fall limp. It choked, grabbing at Lucifer's hand. Lucifer sneered and dropped it to the ground unceremoniously. "Well, Gaudium?"

The demon is eye-to-eye with Dan now, standing on his exaggeratedly large feet. "Sorry," he mumbled.

Dan can tell it's a male demon now. He's completely naked but without _features_ that would indicate one way or another, almost cartoonish or something out of Jim Henson's imagination.

You know, if he was dropping acid and having nightmares.

Lucifer drew back his foot.

Gaudium sputtered, "sorry! I mean it! Cross my heart and hope to - well, you know. Why's he special anyway?"

"He's a douche, but he's _my_ douche. Hands off means _hands off._ You won't get a second warning. Any more demons won't get a _first_ warning, so spread the word, since apparantly the sign on the door isn't good enough."

"...Sign?"

"Bloody-" he pointed at the odd demon. "_Stay put!_"

Lucifer walked away, slamming a door that Dan couldn't see, and was left staring at the odd demon, unsure why he was sure he was odd.

Troublemakers knew one another. Birds of a feather maybe. Dan was never this kind of imp, though, was he?

The demon huffed and planted his feet, standing slightly up on his toes to be taller than Dan sitting on his ass.

Dan assumed the order applied to him as well, so he stays seated. "This is going to sound like a stupid question, but-"

"Yes, it is a stupid question. You're in Hell. With me. Enjoy your pause while it lasts. It won't. Lucifer's favorites don't always stay that way, and your ankles look delicious." He licked his too-wide lips.

Dan immediately crossed his legs. It hurt, a lot, but he wasn't leaving his feet in range. "Favorites?"

"You know. Hitler, Nostradamus, King Henry. Favorites."

"Which Henry?"

"All of them, really. Must be the name - they all amused him at one point. Blue bloods don't usually head for the light."

"I'm not one of those, I'm a cop."

"So you've got a blue heart instead of blue blood. Not much better - also, less money."

"I'm not _Hitler!_" He twisted, looking around, up at the ceiling, maybe for more chains, he didn't know.

"Obviously."

"I'm not any of those guys! I was...a friend of his."

"Who?"

"Lucifer!"

"The King doesn't have _friends_. I'm just telling you what _favorite _around here means."

The King. Lucifer. Lucifer who retired from running Hell. Lucifer who vanished months ago, for at least the second time he knew of. Lucifer, self-proclaimed Devil and Prince of Darkness. Lucifer, who did favors for people, had more money than God and drank whiskey like water.

Lucifer, who was shot in front of him and bounced back up like it was nothing. Dan was absolutely sure he somehow died and came back to life, but that was...absurd. Right? "But I'm. Wait. No."

Lucifer who had a girlfriend named Eve. Who materialized out of _nothing_ some seven-odd years before and decided to make an absolute nuisance of himself with the LAPD.

_Lucifer Fucking Morningstar_.

_Fuck me._

Gaudium grinned. It wasn't pretty. He rubbed his hands together. "Oh, this is _my_ favorite part."

"...Dead? Shit." Heedless of exposure, he fell back, letting the ground jar his head. He saw stars. He couldn't breathe. He reached up to loosen his shirt collar but it wouldn't cooperate with his fingers.

Lucifer returned at a jog, his dress shoes slapping on the smooth stone. "_Gaudium_!"

"I didn't do nothing."

"Honestly, you're worse than Daniel's daughter and chocolate cake." He leaned into Dan's darkening vision and snapped his fingers. The collar separated with a tearing sound and Dan sucked in a lungful of air.

The demon shrugged unhelpfully. "Just talked at him a bit. Seems a little broken if you ask me."

"Well, I didn't, did I? I need someone to replace the sign, or maybe put a lock…" he put his hands on his hips. "Bugger. Hell seems like it's personally out to get him."

Gaudium looked up hopefully.

"_No_, it's a British term. Doesn't necessarily mean the same thing, get your useless mind out of the gutter. Regardless, I guess you're coming back to my place, Daniel."

Dan held his hands over his face. "What's happening?"

"I'm giving you the personal tour. Well, a short one. You may get to see the real meat and bones of Hell some time later."

He tried to stand, but his ankles hurt like...hell and his head was still swimming. "I need a minute."

Lucifer glared at Gaudium. "If you tell _anyone-"_

Gaudium rolled his eyes. "I like living, boss."

"I assure you, you'll like dying slowly a whole lot less." He huffed a sigh, and gestured vaguely.

Dan's wounds vanished to tight, red marks that looked like bad scars. It didn't hurt anymore. He looked up, rubbing his wrist.

"Illusory. Can't have you running around _looking_ healthy. Not that that's your douchey body anymore either, but you are what you think you are, here."

He climbed to his feet, running his fingers over his fake scars. "What?"

Lucifer smiled. "Do you think that's air you're breathing?"


	3. Something about Frying Pans and Fires

"Wait-"

Lucifer snapped his fingers again, gesturing for his demon to give them space. Gaudium growled but moved far enough away to give them privacy. He kicked a rock down the hall.

Once the demon was out of earshot, Lucifer grinned at him and it was so much like the old Lucifer he knew, Dan smiled for about a half a second. The Devil (_actual Devil!_) replied, "always wanted to use that one down here - most souls don't get the pop culture references. Then again, Hell loops tend to scramble minds - even here, humans have a kind of self-defense mechanism where madness is preferable to awareness." He went on, and Dan suddenly just hoped he'd shut up again. "There's a slight benefit, for me anyway, to you dying when you did-"

"Can we go back to that part? How? What?"

"Do you remember how your loop ends? Normally, you shouldn't while you're in it, but I've stopped the cycle for now. I can't get trapped in any of the cells anymore, not with my wings back, so it's no problem for me. If you're very curious, I can turn it on again."

He rubbed his chest, looking down but seeing no blood. Everything was pressing in on him. "I think...I got shot? What do you mean 'for now'?"

The look he got in return wasn't comforting. "I'm still deciding if you're worth my Father's possible wrath for altering your loop or even taking you out of it entirely and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to ignore you or watch you die over and over again. I blame your ex-wife for giving me a soft spot for you lot and _you _in particular. And no, she's not here."

Dan rubbed his throat. _Chloe's not here. Thank God-Fuck._ _This is not good for me though. _"So I was shot and bled out? If this is Hell, why don't I remember it? Is it a shock thing?"

"I'm suppressing the memory for now. Trust me, you don't want it. Please don't give me a reason to let it return to you. You can take comfort in the fact that Chloe wasn't present when you went down, she didn't see it and could not have prevented it."

"Wait, hang on, you've talked to Chloe since... I _died?_ How long have I been here?"

"I haven't, but Maze has," he sidestepped the second half of the question and opened a door Dan hadn't noticed before - an empty blue shadow that led out into more blue.

Lucifer glanced back with an apology, "I _am_ actually sorry about this next part."

Dan felt like he was repeating himself. "What?"

The answer came in a heavy black collar appearing around his neck, connected to Lucifer's hand by a chain. He tugged on it, gently at first, and it was hard and cold on Dan's neck. The finger snapping happened again and Gaudium came back at a trot. Lucifer told Dan, "no one here will mistake you for anything but a human soul and I don't care to answer or be asked any questions while we walk. Gaudium will clear the way back to my - back to the mansion, right, Gaudie?"

The stout demon grumbled again, but not for long or too loudly and slipped out ahead of them. "Yeah, boss. Enjoy your new pet."

Dan didn't have time to protest before he was very nearly literally dragged through the streets of Hell.

_Streets of Hell. Hah. Sounds like a b-rated horror flick._

His predicament became crystal clear the longer he followed Lucifer at a fast trot, tripping a number of times. He couldn't see much in the falling ash and darkness, nor could he take enough of a breath to yell a question. The few other demons they passed bowed low to Lucifer, chittering to themselves quietly. There were some other denizens lining the streets but Dan didn't get a good look at much of anything. Lucifer wasn't _running_, but he was walking fast on longer legs than Dan, and the collar perpetually tugged on the back of his neck, harder than seemed possible for even a brisk pace.

Everything was cast in almost a sapphire blue color, but it was depressing and flat. _Soul-sucking _wasn't a term he wanted to use but it was stuck in his head anyway_. _The ash fell on them both, like dismal snow on the shoulders of Lucifer's black suit jacket, sticking to his hair and clinging like ticks.

Some sort of gargoyle doorman thing saw them into a manor that was somehow isolated from the rest of the landscape, yet also crammed between other structures. His brain wasn't quite coping with it all. Dan only got the barest glimpse of the place and there was an idea in his head that they'd gone uphill. When he tried to gawk at the furnishings, Lucifer yanked Dan hard enough to nearly trip him, pulling him bodily up a flight of stairs and into a bedroom. Lucifer slammed the door and removed the collar with a wave of his hand- it vanished into the nothing from whence it had come.

Dan thought he was going to throw up. He caught his breath, inhaling as deep as he could manage. "What the hell, man?"

His once-coworker brushed the ash from his hair. "The hell indeed. I suggest you get into the habit of watching your tone carefully, especially if we're ever out in what passes for _public_ in this wretched place. If you...misbehave, I'll have to make an example of you and you _might_ wish you had stayed back there in your cell instead."

Dan remembered something about teeth. "You have got to be kid-"

Lucifer's eyes flashed red. "If you have _any_ latent instincts regarding self-preservation, I _strongly _urge you to employ them. This is no theme park. This is the rest of your existence."

Dan sat heavily on the nearest surface, a bed sort of like the one back at the penthouse, but not nearly as elegant. He suddenly froze in fear, thinking of the weird demon's parting remark. _Pet?_ "Lucifer? Why…"

"A moment," the Dark Lord turned his back on him, sat at a desk and appeared to start digging through a stack of papers. "You're safe _here_, in my most-used rooms. The estate is mine, but the servants will not defer to you, only me. You are effectively under my rule, same as everyone else, but you are _not_ a guest."

"_Safe_?"

"Do consider yourself very, _very _lucky to know an inside man. _The_ inside man, not to put too fine a point on it. I owe your family any number of favors - not that the Detective ever kept track of such things - so as long as you can keep your head down, I can keep you, yes, _safe_, for a very long time, possibly eternity. Should you have any doubts about the alternative, I'll gladly show you how dear Cain is currently faring."

"Cain?"

"Your former Lieutenant, Marcus Pierce. I believe you recall him? Are you quite done with single word responses?"

"This is insane."

"Three words, that's an improvement. If only, dear Detective douche. I'm giving you an eye in a world of blind men. Don't lose it."

Dan involuntarily gripped the sheets of the bed, feeling them. Abruptly _aware_ his clothes were practically unraveling. He jerked his wrist up to inspect it, and it was smooth again, unbroken and whole, as were his ankles. He hugged himself, feeling a panic attack coming on.

Lucifer finished whatever he was doing and came to his side with a plain looking envelope. It bore a wax seal. "Take this."

Dan accepted it numbly, and it vanished in his fingers in a burst of blue flame. In the half-second he took to digest this _next new thing_, his left hip burned as if branded. He sucked in a hard, hissed breath with a yelp, curling in on himself until the fire passed from his skin. He opened his already very distressed jeans to reveal a black mark, like a tattoo. It still burned like a banked piece of coal but the pain was fading. "999?"

Lucifer dramatically rolled his eyes. "Daniel…Do not make me regret this."

Oh, he was looking at it from upside down. "You _marked_ me?"

"Unlike the illusions from before, no one in Hell will mistake you for an escaped soul now, even when the mark is hidden by clothing. The parchment I gave you is inside you and can be retrieved by any of the higher demons to provide further proof. It's a - and I mean this with the best possible of intentions - kind of 'return to sender' set of instructions."

Dan felt the blood drain from his face. "You're saying you own me. You've collared and tagged me like a damn endangered bird."

"Birds are much too majestic for the comparison. Think of yourself more of deep-ocean dwelling beast no one particularly cares about but wants to keep from completely perishing all the same. This _is_ Hell. The sooner you get used to how things work, the better off you'll be. Unless you'd like me to remove the mark and try your luck _out there _without it." Lucifer gestured harshly. He was running out of patience and he had things that had to be done today. "Gaudium has been roped into being your caretaker in my absence as penance for breaking my rules on your cell."

He stood, angling for a tall mirror in the corner. Pulling his jeans down to his low hips, he could more easily read the tattooed mark on his hip. The bottommost curl of the number was unpleasantly close to his junk. He supposed he should be happy he even has his body intact. "Absence?" _At least it's stylized and doesn't look drawn on by Trixie. Oh God. Trixie and Chloe and Ella and-_. He looked around for somewhere to throw up for real. Lucifer sighed and pointed to the open window. Dan didn't question it.

He leaned out, weakly watching the meager contents of his stomach fall two floors down into what _could_ charitably be called a garden. Cold pressure on his neck became evident and heavy. The collar had reappeared while his head was out the window.

_Oh joy of joys._

He came back, wiping his mouth and collapsed on the bed again, sans collar. A thought occurred to him as he rubbed the mark. It tingled but at least the pain had faded to almost nothing. "This is your bedroom right? Where are you putting me?"

"You'll stay here. I'm not giving up my bed - you can either share it or sleep on the floor. There are days and nights here, a cycle that vaguely mimics the one on earth. I have duties to attend to as King of Hell and I frankly don't trust my _staff_ enough to leave you alone in a regular dungeon cell - ones without Hell loops." His eyes softened around the edges. "Nor do I _want_ to do that to you. Non-loop cells are in a true dungeon. The ones most human souls are left in don't have locks. I suppose the idea was they they could leave if they wanted to, but they never do."

"An actual dungeon is worse?"

"You've heard about torture in medieval times, yes? Racks, various wheels, thumbscrews, iron maidens, the like?"

"Yeah?"

"Living humans experiencing those things were eventually granted the gift of death."

Dan shifted on the mattress, hearing both the said and unsaid threats. His stomach roiled again. "Your buddy called me your pet."

"Was there a question? Hell has no equals. I can't treat you like we're both humans. I have leeway in private, at least until you begin to make appearances - and I cannot be _nice_ to you outside of these rooms. You _need_ to understand I might do things to you outside that would be considered - well, they will be abusive, should the need arise. You'll come to hate me as much as everyone else does, if you don't already."

He shuddered. "Lucifer,"

"Do _not_ say anything either of us will regret. You haven't experienced or seen my full wrath. I've burned down demons on the spot they stood for failing to address me properly. I can always return you to your cell and let Hell have you until you go round the bend with madness. Speaking of, I need to find out _why _Hell itself is making you a pain in my arse. It's overly interested in you, which is, frankly, enough of a reason to keep a closer eye on you than I had been."

Lucifer suddenly huffed a sigh and jerked his door open, to find Gaudium falling in, from trying to listen in from the other side. "Are you quite done?"

The dwarf-sized demon fell on his face, dark blue wings sticking stiffly out of his back and up like an antenna, and then he jumped up again. He looked disappointed that Dan wasn't - what - flayed? Something? He still had his jeans undone and the mark was clearly visible, which seemed to mollify the demon. "Aye. I'm to wait on your pet, is that it?"

"And you're not to speak of anything that happens in my chambers. _Anything._"

"Aw. You haven't had a pet since _way _before you left last time though. I could use some juicy gossip out of this assignment."

Lucifer didn't reply. His very presence, however, _darkened_. Dan sensed power in the room, wrapping around him, rising like a snake ready to strike.

Gaudium was apparently used to this. "Fiiiiine. I guess I'll have to make some up then. All to your favor, m'lord, not to worry."

"With you, the only thing I worry about is whether or not all the forks in the silverware drawer are still present. I have to go spend some time in the throne room. You're to find him some sort of clothing that isn't coming apart and see to his basic needs. My personal store is open to him. Maybe find something around here to keep him occupied. You're not to let him out of the manor without my _express_ permission, understood?"

"That means I can walk him around inside right?"

"That might be best. His collar reforms outside of this room."

Gaudium growled lowly and it wasn't a happy sound to Dan's ears. "Wouldn't want it to get in the way, eh? I bet he takes pretty marks. Nice flushed skin and all."

Dan quickly sat up and backed up against the headboard, holding his jeans closed with one hand and rubbing his neck with the other.

The demon spit, "yeah, that'll help you."

Lucifer opened the door again, getting ready to leave.

Dan extended a hand, "Wait, uh -"

He was met with a cold stare and an expectant look. _The serpent of Eden._

His throat went dry. He thought of the rasping chains from the cell, dragging through his skin. _Self-preservation. _"Lord...Morning-"

"Lord Lucifer or Dark Lord will do. For now."

He swallowed hard and it went down like a lump of iron ore. "Dark Lord, I uh. Will he…?"

"Gaudium will do as he's told. He stretches his limits sometimes, but his word is more reliable than most demons and he has been told not to hurt you."

Gaudium hummed.

"I did tell you that, did I not? Ugh. Gaudium, don't hurt him unless he misbehaves. Do _not _test my boundaries on what that means. You've been around long enough to know exactly what I want."

Dan didn't like the glint in the demon's eyes. "Yes, boss."

Lucifer gave them one last long look and swept out the door.


	4. Demons are Dicks

The door swung shut with a finality that made Dan shiver. If there was one person in all of Hell who had a soul, he would have said it was Lucifer. This creature here definitely did not, or if so, it was more corrupt than the dirtiest cop he'd ever met. Demons apparently had both nothing to lose, but also nothing to gain except Lucifer's favor. Dan thought there might be some leeway to exploit that. But then again, _demon._

Gaudium grinned at him. "Wanna see the place, pet?"

Weakly, he said, "my name is Dan."

"That's boring. Boss must think you have some interesting value, though. Ohh, maybe you scream good when you _aren't_ running down a hall. That was just _depressing, _pet."

He went cold all over, then immediately hot with rage. "Fuck you! You were going to _torture_ me!"

The short demon gave him an unimpressed look. "That's my job, buddy. Part of it anyway. It's a good job too - pays well, _he said ironically_. Of course, I wasn't actually supposed to _be _in your cell, as you probably figured out. My sister stole your sign, by the way, it's long gone by now. The day isn't over yet, maybe m'lord will still let me have a go. I don't _need_ you to be in your cell - there are _tons_ of interesting ways we can dispense punishment."

Dan clenched his fists. "Look, you flapping asshole, Lucifer won't-"

"Language, pretty boy. And it's _Lord_ Lucifer. Oh, and we've got absolutely fascinating ways to torture you too. Which I consider something totally separate from _punishment_. So _excuse me_ if I'm still looking forward to a little _me time_ later."

"_I'm so sorry_ if I don't want to get on with that kind of day."

"Apology accepted."

"That was sarcasm."

"I don't care."

He braced himself. On the one hand, he didn't want to get on Lucifer's bad side. On the other, he wasn't going down without a fight, plain and simple. "I'm _not_ going!"

Gaudium rolled his eyes with more disdain than he'd ever seen from Lucifer and crooked a finger. "Yes. You are." An unseen hand grabbed him about the neck. "You're the _bottom_ rung, pal, and you can take that however you like, but you're _coming_ with me."

Dan tried to hide against the headboard, pressing hard against it, away from the demon. The carved headboard appeared to have deep claw marks on it and his fingers slotted into a set of them. "What are you doing?"

"I'm not gonna answer a dumb question unless it amuses me. Right now, you don't. Now move that cute butt, I can use you to get myself a snack _and_ have some fun."

_What does that even mean?_

He stared down at Gaudium for what felt like ages, but he didn't give the demon that much credit for patience. The _force_ around his neck shoved him up off the bed and out the door, choking him. He remembered too late the words about that room being the safest place for him. The collar reformed out of thin air, complete with a hanging chain this time, unlike when he puked out the window. Probably, anyway, he hadn't been paying a lot of attention to things other than his heaving stomach.

Gaudium grabbed the chain near Dan's waist and yanked down with a grin as the collar dug into his neck painfully. "This way, pet. See what a little mischief will get you? I mean, I thought for sure Lucifer was gonna throw me in a cell - maybe yours - and let me burn alive for like, a decade, but instead, I get to show his new toy around and maybe have some fun."

In what was sure to be a spectacularly terrible decision, Dan wrapped his fist around his chain and yanked back on it, pulling Gaudium up off his feet and letting him dangle while he held on, cursing in what Dan assumed to be a demonic tongue. One of his wings slapped Dan in the face, hard, and he dropped the demon again with a yelp, rubbing his eye. Gaudium got to his feet in a flash and bit Dan hard on the leg, drawing blood with fanged teeth. He shook the demon off with a cry and they stood there for a long moment, staring at each other and breathing hard.

The demon hissed, picking up the chain again and solidly yanking it, nearly throwing Dan off his feet. "Boss'll love hearing about this. Pets don't bite back."

"How about I don't tell him about the sign, whatever the fuck that even means, and we'll call it even?"

Gaudium just smiled. "I changed my mind. I _do _like you. We have a deal. I can see why the boss likes you too."

Dan glowered. "He used to get under my skin all the time, do things to deliberately piss me off. I seriously doubt he _likes _me."

"Well, you know, in his own way. He seems to like you enough to give you special treatment. Not that I'm complaining; this will be good for me. Move it."

This time, Dan followed obediently, if only so the collar wouldn't be pulling on his neck. A skinnier and slightly taller demon waited at the bottom of the stairs, watching with huge, wide eyes. She was a different overall color than Gaudium but Dan thought that there was some resemblance. She licked her nearly non-existent lips. "What's that?"

Gaudium gestured at her to follow along with him. "Boss' new pet. We like him. Danny-boy here is my punishment task for now. Don't get your hopes up, _my _punishment, not his."

She fell in next to them, eyeing Dan with uncomfortable interest and more than a bit of distaste. "We like _him_? He smells _fresh_."

"He's gonna get us favors. By the way, I'm recruiting you to help me with this assignment."

"You said it was _your _punishment."

"It's all a punishment here. Whatever. We get some perks out of it. He's the Dark Lord's new favorite. Different kinda favorite." Gaudium turned to the new demon and waggled the lines of flesh where eyebrows would be. "_Bedchamber_ favorite."

Dan jerked to a stop, sputtering, "What?"

"Oh, he hasn't broken you in yet? Never known him to put off that kind of thing before. Hmm. I'll definitely be listening outside the door for that. The perks are getting better all the time. C'mon, toy."

"He wouldn't…"

If he was expecting sympathy from Gaudium, he was sorely mistaken. The demon chortled. "Wouldn't _what?_"

He ran his fingers through his hair. It felt like he hadn't washed in a month. The next closest thing was a camping trip that ran two weeks in the summer. Even then, the group had a stream or at least a handful of clean water to clean up in after a day of hiking. _Fuck. How long had he been here already? _He couldn't smell himself over the ambient cloud of _Hell, _but he didn't know if that was a good thing or not.

"Lu-Lord Lucifer. I've never seen him-" he was going to say _hurt anyone._ But he had. He'd seen Lucifer throw someone through a window. Heard of the suspects who sometimes ran screaming from the interrogation room.

He thought the suspects were being melodramatic. Using the fact 'the Devil' was asking them questions they didn't want to answer to build a lawsuit for later. Not that the imagined lawsuit had ever materialized.

The broken window though...

Gaudium snapped his fingers and Dan involuntarily flinched, hating himself for doing it. He pulled to keep Dan walking. "Did you miss your initiation class on '_How Hell Works'_?"

"That can't possibly be a thing." Dan considered his mouth might be the death of him here.

"Hah. Spera, he thinks he's the expert now. I don't know how it works topside, but down here, _everyone _gets their hands dirty. What kind of odds do you wanna bet on for how long he lasts? A month?"

A nasty smile stretched across her lips, "not betting before I see more of 'im. Not after last time."

Dan straightened up and growled with more bravado than he felt, "I can do this for _years_."

She giggled. It sounded like sandpaper bits scraping together. "Oh, yeah, he's gonna be fun."


	5. Tour

The mansion's ceiling loomed over them, lost in the dark, save for hanging lanterns that plunged down, hanging from unseen hooks like burning eyes. The place could have been a very depressing but well-kept version of the occasional generic castle he'd since online. He got more of a look at the place coming back down the stairs than going up. He hadn't missed much.

He jerked away from a particularly dark shadow that something skittered out of. Whatever shoes he arrived in Hell with were gone. Or what his brain thought he had them at some point. _Was I buried in my dress shoes? I wanted to be cremated, but my parents probably wouldn't do that. Was Chloe still on my will? I can't remember if I ever changed it. _He knew Trixie was. He knew he hadn't _planned_ on removing Chloe from it until at least one of them re-married, but he hadn't thought about it in over a year. She wasn't on his insurance anymore. He hoped they wouldn't harass her for whatever medical bills accrued due to a hospital trying to save him.

He shook himself out of his fugue and watched his feet make depressions in the carpet.

He still wasn't clear on how much of this place was _Matrix_ or if demons and Lucifer were the only ones able to manipulate it. The shredded hem of his jeans, newly wet again with blood from Gaudiums bite, felt real enough.

Dan got distracted enough by the medieval decor to calm down a little. Then he thought of what Lucifer and Gaudium said about torture devices, and he was back in his own mental pinball machine.

Black marble stairs met more marble floors, covered in rugs that probably would have been nice almost anywhere else. A chandelier tinkled overhead, reflecting candlelight. They passed a lit fireplace, and it was a relief to see something so bright, even if it burned purple afterimages into his retinas that floated ahead for several minutes.

Gaudium and the female demon spoke to each other in some language that sounded harsh and reminded him of when Ella occasionally spoke Klingon. As long as they weren't watching him, he took in his surroundings as much as possible and tried not to think too hard about his future.

Lucifer, in life, was annoying, an asshole and a dick, but he wasn't...a _bad guy._ Surely he wasn't expecting Dan to do anything with him in bed, voluntarily or otherwise.

His mouth twisted. Right. _Better not displease the Dark Lord_. He really didn't want to go back to the cell either.

He'd burn that bridge when he came to it.

The laundry had a number of what Dan could only think of as lesser demons, toiling away in and around hot baths of water. They didn't chatter to each other the way these two did, and they all looked thinner and _tired_. The stench of cleansers pervaded the air, making Dan wrinkle his nose.

A tall, orange demon without a nose came over and viewed him skeptically.

Gaudium, without asking, yanked down Dan's jeans enough to show the upper lettering of the new mark. Dan nearly lashed out, pulling back hard on the chain and several - demons or whatever they were - stopped what they were doing and eyeballed the group, hoping to watch a drama unfold.

They nearly got one.

The bite on his leg throbbed. He breathed out slowly, burning with anger but pushing it down and channeling his improv classes. Even if he was strong enough to take any of these assholes, they had strength in numbers. He felt every pair (or other sets of) eyes on him. "Sorry."

Gaudium looked decidedly disappointed. The female demon deflated. The orange one gave him another _look_ and walked away.

Dan had to ask, "what's happening?"

His 'guide' muttered, "shut up."

Without a word, the laundry area worker returned with a thin leather (or something tanned, Dan didn't look too hard at it) bag of _something_. He was pretty sure there was a patch of fur on it. Gaudium took it and passed it to Dan without looking inside. "That's yours now, courtesy the Dark Lord. Don't lose it."

He started to open it, but Gaudium yanked him right back out the door. "Later."

Without much hope by the way it was handed over, Dan checked it for straps and amazingly, found some. He slung it over his shoulder. Gaudium gave him another _look_, then kept talking to the female one still in that weird tongue so he (frustratingly) couldn't understand a word - and jerked him along. Gaudium shortened the chain for his own amusement and made Dan bend down, walking as if cowed, the satchel making him a hunchback in profile. He grunted but didn't care to be bitten again.

The smell of burnt bread wafted down towards them. "Spera, go get us a table."

The female took off, nearly skipping, but with an uncoordinated, jittering gait that creeped him out and reminded him of spiders.

"Who is that anyway?"

"That's my sis. You be nice to her."

"the sign stealer? Can I _please_ stand up straight?"

"Meh," but Gaudium let out the chain enough for Dan to straighten up. He chalked it up to the demon doing something nice, so Dan might let his guard down. Which put him more on guard instead. He did not see good times ahead for him and Gaudium.

The burnt bread smell dissolved into something that was almost pleasant. Dan found he could be hungry after all.

Gaudium got to some sort of counter with a hulking creature behind it and said, "three. Something _without_ piss in it." He patted Dan with a grin, and the creature gave him a sniff. It left with a grunt and returned with a flat tray holding drinking containers full of something dark and liquid.

They moved through what Dan supposed was a common area for the house servants. He sat on a low bench uncomfortably while Spera and her brother kept chattering on. He sniffed the drink. It _sort of _smelled like cheap red wine. A basket of warm, black bread was dropped unceremoniously on the table, making him jump. The two demons dug into it eagerly, tearing it into pieces and stuffing it in their mouths.

Other _things _around them at other tables pretended not to be extremely interested in the scene. There were no other humans, only stuff made of nightmares. He blew out a long breath and pretended he was only playing the scariest video game ever made. Which was better than being in Hell.

Dan grabbed a bread thing before they were all gone. It tasted like a crusty sponge and one side was definitely burned, but it was food. He must not have been successful in hiding his distaste. Spera speared him with a glare. "Problem, human-boy?"

Some kind of spread rested in the basket. It smelled vaguely like sour fermented yeast. Dan skipped it. "It's fine, I'm sure. Not what I'm used to." He took a large bite he hoped was convincing.

Gaudium looked amused. Dan didn't like it when he looked amused. "You aren't getting anything you're _used to, _Danny-boy. Ever again."

"Yeah, that's...starting to sink in."

"That won't be the only thing _sinking in_," he elbowed his sister gleefully, who just looked annoyed at the interruption of chomping down on her questionable-yeast-spread covered food. She wiped her face then licked her hand clean.

Dan tried to make himself look smaller. "Luci- _Lord_ Lucifer said you've known him a long time?"

Gaudium nodded cheerfully. "Nearly his bestest friend, after Mazikeen. I sure do miss her. She was _creative._ Maybe I'll get to say hi, the next time she makes a trip down. Hey, what was m'Lord like topside? Don't get out much, since the possession ban."

"I… we worked together." Dan was _absolutely not_ going to tell them about Lucifer and Chloe. "He was a consultant with us and he told everyone he was the Devil, but no one ever believed him."

"Wow, really? Even with face and all the -" he made a gesture with his hands that probably was supposed to mean something, going by Spera's knowing expression.

He tried to make a guess. "I mean, I never saw those eyes before - when they turned red like that back in my - He never..._looked_ like…" _the devil._

"Oh, that's interesting. He didn't wanna scare you guys? I guess he really didn't want to come back here, didn't want to draw too much attention. Huh. Well, it's good he came back, this place turned into a real shit hole."

"He didn't want to come back? Isn't this where he's supposed to be?"

Spera looked at her brother, dismissing Dan. "He's pretty, like Lord Lucifer. Maybe that's why he wants him. 'Cause it's not for the brain meat."

"Hey now!"

Gaudium dangled the end of his chain from a pinky finger. "Yes?"

He rubbed his face, bumping the chain. "God, I hate this place already."

"Wouldn't mention _Him_ around here. He's not exactly welcome."

"Fucking - ugh." Dan cautiously sipped his drink and it burned like alcohol, but that was about all it had going for it. That and apparently being free of _piss._ He threw it back and drained it in several large gulps and grabbed another piece of so-called bread, trying not to gag.

The look on Spera's face as _she_ drank, however, made him wonder just how piss-free the wine actually was.

The looks on the faces of the things around him made him sickly happy that he _belonged_ to Lucifer. He tugged at the chaffing collar, trying not to be angry. Trying not to be sad. Trying not to feel anything, period., He knew that if he let that happen, he'd just start to feel sorry for himself, and that seemed like a bad idea, considering there would be nothing here to help get him out of that kind of hole again.

God decided he deserved to be here. The God he occasionally talked to, well, _at_, in life. God sent him here, apparently to be Lucifer's new _plaything_.

It had to be better than being back _there_ and watching his bloody teeth run away like white cockroaches, right?

After all the shit he'd given Lucifer over the years, it seemed distantly poetic, even if it wasn't fair. It wasn't like Lucifer hadn't efficiently returned the shit in spades.

_Come on, making the teeth-falling-out nightmare real? That was just cruel. _

He looked over at his table companions and remembered where he was all over again. Gaudium played with the end of the chain casually - a foot or so of it lay coiled up under his wrist. Spera nodded to whatever he was saying. Dan became distantly aware that they were having some sort of playful banter.

He rested his hands on the table, looking for any kind of distraction. "What's the joke?"

They turned as one to look at him suspiciously. "You speak Lilim?" he asked.

"No. Not yet anyway. I speak two languages fluently and I understand a few others, though. I don't care if you're making fun of me, let me in on it."

Spera's ear twitched. "Well...We don't see a lot of humans outside of their cells unless they're being moved around."

"Yeah?"

"Or, you know, on Parade Day. We're wondering if Lord Lucifer is going to let Parade Day come back. He put a stop to it when he took over again. He likes you, maybe you can ask him to bring it back."

_Don't ask. Don't ask. Don't ask. _"What's Parade Day?"

"We started it after Lord Lucifer left. Every so often, we would let a whole bunch of human souls out of their cells and marched them down the main street and throw cockatrice eggs at them. It's hilarious." She grinned with a full mouth of sharp teeth. "Sometimes we put them back in different cells and let them run through other humans' Hell Loops until the next Parade Day. Lord Lucifer made us put them all back in the right ones when he found out about it. Hmmph. Won't let us have any more parades either." She frowned but didn't voice her displeasure with their King's decision to call it off. It was written all over her face though.

"I, uh. See."

She nodded like he totally did see and added with a whine, "he won't let us do _anything _since he got back. We figure he's just settling back into it. He used to be creative too."

Gaudium elbowed her. "We don't doubt the King will get back to ruling properly, mind, but the waiting gets tedious. We still get to torture the ones on the _approved _list, so that's good, but it hasn't been updated in _ages_. All kinds of new arrivals haven't been tortured _at all._"

Dan turned his cup around. The liquid - that's about all it had going for it as a qualifier - definitely was alcoholic, distributing a low buzz that started to numb his senses pleasantly. Even if he had heartburn now.

The sooner he got back to the chambers, the sooner he could get some of all this over with. A routine would probably help, even if involved being Lucifer's toy. He knew, equally, that he was just trying to make himself feel better.

Dan shivered involuntarily. He'd never had sex with a man before, nor forced to by _anyone_. Maybe the demons were wrong and his instincts about Lucifer from working with him for the last few years were right.

_Sure. Except these guys have known him_ _literal eons_ _longer. _

In his work, Dan had interviewed both victims and perpetrators of all sorts of crimes. He could recite by heart some of the more common lines. Lies from the suspects who didn't believe they'd get caught and even lies from the victims who didn't want to talk about how bad it had really been.

The first interviews he sat in on, the ones he and his trainer spent interviewing victims, he didn't understand why they would ever lie. Why the targets or even bystanders wouldn't always spill every detail to make sure their assailants were captured or prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Why they weren't _angry._

Sometimes he got angry for them. It wasn't healthy, but he couldn't help it. It was frankly a miracle he never developed a drinking problem.

It would take him years to understand that many of them felt that confessing made them victims twice-over. They didn't outright say it, of course, but it was there. It took Dan a long time to see it, to find the signs when victims held back vital information for a case. That because they _had _to sign a document stating what had happened, by speaking out loud what had been pushed upon them, it made it all the more real, all the more difficult to bear.

Some went so far as to blame themselves, taking responsibility for provoking their attackers. He vowed back then that it would never happen to him, he would never blame any but who hit first, the one who raised a fist first. He redoubled that vow now.

Maybe he was stuck here. Maybe this was his eternal punishment, but he would _not_ be the victim twice over here. Whatever these two did to him, or Lucifer, or all of Hell itself, he wouldn't make excuses for them. He wouldn't bow so far he broke his back.

It was easy to say now, of course. His dignity was all he had right now. He'd keep it as well as he could, even if he had to hide it close.

Dan knew he wasn't the first pet. He decided not to ask the demons about previous ones.


	6. Deafening Silence

He threw the bag in the corner with as much force as he could muster and while it made a satisfactory _thump_ against the wall, it changed nothing. He had nothing left in him but wringing bitterness and exhaustion, and the exhaustion was winning now. The pressure in his chest was all from within, clawing at his insides and turning them to jelly.

What was the metaphor? He was out of spoons. And he didn't have many to begin with as it was.

He yanked the covers back, wiggled under them and cocooned himself in black sheets.

The bed was still lumpy, and the air he was breathing under the blanket was rapidly going stale, but at least the collar had vanished again as soon as he'd crossed the threshold, and Lucifer wasn't back yet, meaning he had at least a little peace and quiet until he returned.

And he was alone in the room. _Actually _alone.

Finally.

The brother and sister pair had dropped him off and he could still hear them, faintly, talking away just outside the door. They eventually wandered off.

What passed for 'night' was upon the landscape, and with it, empty streets. He heard no one in the next room, no one moving about. Hell was going to sleep and it didn't snore.

He had forgotten what _nothing_ sounded like.

No buzz of electronics, no radio, no streetlights. Not even crickets, Hell-born or otherwise. Maybe there weren't any.

Even when someone left a TV 'on' with nothing playing, it still made an electronic hum. He could walk into the breakroom at work and hear it if he was on a lonely night shift. Some people claimed they could hear live wires in the walls. He believed them now.

In the too loud silence closing in on him, everything hit in a crushing wave. He was in Lucifer's _home_. Not LUX. Not the penthouse. In his real home. In his bed. Expected to behave well or be punished. Or if his original location was any clue, just _be_ punished regardless of his behavior, good or otherwise..

He might be able to pick up Gaudium and throw him out a window, but he didn't give his overall odds of long-term survival much credit if he tried it.

Now that long-term meant something a bit different than what he was used to. He'd had a mere 38 years of life on earth, and had the possibility of _millions_ of years in Hell, post-life. Or more. And anyway, what _would _happen if he died down here? Would he just… cease to be entirely?He couldn't digest it. It was too much. He smelled his breath under the covers and closed his eyes.

Fuck. He was _actually_ in Hell and he didn't really know why. Even if he had a bunch of good guesses. Perfectly valid guesses probably. Sure, he'd made some bad choices in his life, but _Hell? _He'd never hurt a kid, never murdered - okay, there was some fuzzy area there, but still. If he had any true regrets, it was from how he treated Chloe around Palmetto. She'd forgiven him for it, but it still hung over him like an axe held up by a thread.

Except the thread snapped and the axe dropped with heartless precision.

Dan curled up into a tight ball under the blankets and sobbed for what felt like an eternity until he couldn't taste anything except ashes with every gasping inhale. He coughed and rubbed his eyes, but they stung with new irritation from doing that. He felt like a raw and throbbing wound, open and unhealing. Eventually, he ran out of tears.

He wanted to throw up again. He wanted to get out of bed even less than after his seperation with Chloe. He controlled his breathing until the urge to heave passed.

He let himself wonder if he was _actually_ _supposed _to be here.

He froze when the door creaked open.

Like a dog who knew his master's footsteps, he knew Lucifer was back. He pretended to be asleep, but his attempt at subterfuge was apparently lacking.

"Hello, Daniel." Lucifer's voice was flat, lacking any of the brightness he exhibited at work. Especially around Chloe. Even when Lucifer was irritated at something in the precinct, he was _animated._

If Lucifer wanted Dan to bow at his arrival, he'd have to drag him out of bed himself first.

Instead, an unwelcome weight came down on the bed, dipping half the mattress, and he heard shoes hit the floor one at a time. Lucifer's voice carried through the blanket. "It's not so bad, once you get used to it. I mean, it still is, obviously." there was a pause and Lucifer patted Dan's leg, making him twitch closer in on himself, almost violently. The touch vanished with a sharp jerk away, like he'd touched a hotplate.

The weight got up again. The bed creaked and a microscopic amount of longing entered his words, "but occasionally you can forget how horrible it is."

The sound of a bottle uncorking. He heard drinking but not pouring. Dan had no idea if Lucifer was addressing Dan or talking to himself, but either option made his mind race and his stomach cramp up again.

Dan pulled the covers down to his neck, clinging to the rough fabric like a shield. He didn't know what he was expecting, exactly. Maybe to be descended upon immediately. Maybe to be told to get up and attend to him. After the day he'd had, the words thrown at him, he expected nothing tolerable, but at least he'd see it coming.

Then, to his complete surprise, Lucifer ignored him when Dan didn't respond verbally. No demands were made of him, no expectant look or even gesture to climb out of bed and get on his knees. For the first time today, he wasn't made to _do_ anything by someone else. He rubbed his neck and waited for something to happen.

Dan warily watched him move through the spacious room. He put his shoes up in what looked like a regular closet, removed his suit jacket and shook it out. Ash flew free of it to settle on the floor. He hung it up and removed his cufflinks, dropping them rattling into a container on his desk. Some part of Dan's brain that seemed to still be functional thought it was odd that Lucifer didn't have a mirror anywhere in the room.

For a surreal moment, it was all completely _domestic_; the way he undressed and unpacked his Devil aura. Dan let himself focus on the way Lucifer moved, away from the eyes of demons or his faithful subjects. The way he let himself relax in Dan's presence, steadily looking more and more like the aggravating police consultant he knew. The one who stole his puddings and raided the work fridge with wild abandon. The one who sometimes played guitar around the station and once sang Dan the dirtiest version of 'Happy Birthday' he'd ever heard in his life, to cheers from the bullpen and leaving Dan red-faced for a week. Lucifer even wore a flowing white halter-top Marilyn dress for the sultry event that did ridiculously nice things to his bare shoulders that Dan tried very hard not to think about, which of course, only added to the effect of the song.

He felt an uncontrollable _yearning_ for more of that, more _normal_. _Stop it, Dan, don't go Stockholm._ He let out a breath.

And yet.

Lucifer caught Dan watching him. He wasn't' exactly being subtle about it. "What?"

He ran his fingers through his hair. "Nothing. You just look like..._you. _How I remember you."

"Were you expecting me to look like someone else?"

"Kinda."

He got a grunt in response, followed by an unexpected, "how are you holding up?"

"I'm in one piece. Those demons - Gaudium and Spera - they're _weird_ and abrasive. They did get me food and clothes, so they did what you told them to. Or told him to. They creep me out. Reminds me of some nasty people I knew, both some I arrested and some I worked with. A few of them are probably down here too. Shit. Malcolm is here, isn't he?"

"That he is. I don't bother checking on him or many others. I don't get any particular glee from watching punishments anymore."

"Apparently Gaudium does."

"They're _different _from most demons. They're fallen Cherubs. Maze's and her siblings' mother was Lilith, making them Lilim. They had never known anything other than Hell. Any of the fallen have a spiteful streak running through them that makes them more effective in some cases, and less effective in others. Maze has always been blood-thirsty, but she'd never known love or anything like it before coming to earth. Not from me, and not from her mother. She is a singular being made of lust and vengeance, or she was until she met Linda. Gaudium and Spera… well, mother was, well, _mine_, in a looser sense. She didn't _birth _any of us you know. They once knew our Father's love, as I did, before he cast us all away."

Dan processed it, beginning to let his guard down for the first time all day. "Chloe said Charlotte was your step-mom. Was that…"

"You were wondering if you slept with the Goddess of All Creation? Yes, in fact, you did. And now I'm thinking about it and _thank you very much_ for that mental image." Lucifer shrugged out of his shirt, pulling it free from his dress trousers and hanging it up too. "As for those two, demons of all types and origin are part chaos and entirely self-serving. As a rule, they're highly unreliable, but they're more or less all I've got. Gaudium may be one of your only points of contact outside of myself, but don't mistake it for any sort of friendship."

"Oh, trust me, I won't." But it begged the bitter question, "were _you_ ever my friend?"

Lucifer looked insulted. "As much as I was for anyone else, certainly. I enjoyed your company, for the most part, even when you were unbearably tedious. I considered what I had with the...with Chloe much closer than with anyone else. She was truly special."

"Yeah. She was. _Is_, I guess. She certainly doesn't belong here, even if she has terrible taste in men. No offense, but, well." Dan gestured around him.

He looked away. "None taken. It's highly unlikely I'll see her again in her lifetime." He shivered, turning back to Dan, putting the emotional mask back on. "There are a few human friends I might see here, as time goes on. But I hope not."

There was something under the flippancy, shying away from him. Dan pressed it. "Gaudium said you don't have any friends."

"I can't expect that from you, either. We can't have what we did before., Whatever we were to each other, it's gone."

He went cold again, stomach plummeting, reminded of what that meant. _Lucifer's pets don't last. _Was the Dark Lord so vastly different here than when he was a coworker? The accent was the same, some little touches of humanity that he'd picked up still seemed to be there. As much as Dan had loathed Lucifer, he had changed some. He saw Lucifer as he began to _like _Trixie, making small changes that showed he had started thinking more of the people around him. Most of it suffered a backward slide when he dated the bouncy woman who followed him around. Not that Dan himself had ever been a saint.

But he'd never seen the guy as _evil._

He stood facing away from Dan, hard muscles catching the light and a well-defined back that stretched for miles. The lamp light was dim but he thought maybe the scars he saw before were...gone? He had other things to think about. _Those people we interviewed, all of them said he was amazing in bed. _ _Maybe he'll be nice about it, history of mutual dislike notwithstanding._

Lucifer was the only man he'd ever wondered about. Anyone else just wasn't appealing. Of course, now he knew why - the man was supernaturally beautiful. Yeah, he could lie back and think of England if he had to. If he wasn't too rough about it anyway.

Okay, maybe not _England_, not with the British accent Lucifer retained. Even if the demons were ultimately right about the person he thought he'd known, he wouldn't go down as a victim. Dan had a long history of being able to fool himself, however.

He pulled on that stubbornness now, unconsciously clenching his fists at his sides.

Lucifer seemed to sense the growing tension as he pulled his belt free and dropped it over the back of a chair. He turned to face Dan and his front was just as pretty as his back, defined and lean, picking up the glow from lamps set around the room. "Problem, Daniel?"

He missed lightbulbs.

Dan slid out of the bed and looked around for the biggest other piece of furniture. The floor would have to do. "I'd rather not sleep in the bed tonight."

He got an indifferent shrug, "If you like. You ought to at least change. Mind that the ash gets into _everything_ quickly and you can't possibly be comfortable in what you're wearing now. It won't make the floor any better if that's what you're insisting on, but a change of clothes might make it easier for you to fall asleep."

He swallowed. It wasn't really the answer he was expecting, but it also sort of was. "You don't..._want_ me to stay in bed?"

The smile he knew, used to know, appeared, "Well, aren't you recovering nicely." He came across the room, the closest he'd really been to Dan all day, reaching up to touch his face. "I admit, I never expected a welcome back kiss, but-" he frowned, meeting Dan's eyes and finding something hard and uncomfortable in them. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

The dark eyes went flat. "Daniel."

Dan must have been pale. His heart pounded against his ribs and he ground his teeth but he didn't look away. "It has been stated that you wanted...something _specific_ from me. A few times. So if you could at least make it quick…" _I deserve it._

_The Devil himself *wants* me. I'm absolutely fucked. _He didn't know if knowing him as a _friend _will make a difference, but who knows.

Lucifer dropped his hand as if Dan just tried to bite him, "By whom - Oh, right, the demons. No. I haven't _had_ anyone here in ages, not even Maze - she's very good in bed, but, well, still a demon. Their passions run _differently_."

He swallowed on a dry throat. "So you aren't expecting me-"

"If I or anyone else were to throw you down against your will, I expect you to fight tooth and nail." His eyes suddenly flashed red with a new thought, but in a way Dan found oddly comforting. "Wait, did Gaudium-?"

"No. No. Does he even have- you know what, I don't want to know. He bit me, but I sort of deserved it." Dan rubbed his leg. The bite was sore but didn't seem to be festering. He hoped infectious bacteria weren't a thing in Hell. He doubted he was that lucky, though.

Lucifer let the second statement pass without comment. "I assume he does, but I never looked that closely. Either way, it doesn't mean he couldn't do _damage_ to you - he's stronger than he lets on, they all are."

Dan twitched. "Gaudium said...that I wasn't your first _pet_."

Lucifer regarded him darkly. "And what do you think he meant by that?"

The ground under Dan abruptly shifted. "I assumed that meant I have to do whatever you want."

He let Dan sweat for a long moment. He picked his bottle back up and took a long drink straight from it, his lips separating from it again with a _pop._ "Technically, that is true. From _their _point of view. But demons don't get the full picture. They never do - save Mazikeen. My previous _pets_ got the same treatment you do now. I don't take anyone to bed against their will, though it may appear that way to outsiders."

"You're saying I _don't _have to do what you want?"

"I'm saying that while I may very well be a monster and a torturer, I have limits in my private life." He started to say something more but shook his head. "Demons do not. That's why they assume that what is true outside of my private chamber, is just as real inside of them. This does not, however, negate my previous warning about publically _chastising_ you if I have to."

He sat, stunned, mulling it over.

"All that said, If you do decide you want a romp, I certainly won't turn you down, but you aren't expected to _perform_ sexually. The offer of sharing my bed remains, no favors required." He pointed at it, "_that _one, unlike the one in my penthouse, rarely gets much use for what you're thinking of." And because of _course_, he added, "other than just for myself, if you count that."

Dan dropped his head and let out an explosive breath. "Okay, good."

A bit of the Devil that Dan used to know rose from the grave, smiling seductively, "come now, it would be very nice, I assure you. I take a certain pride in getting my partners off first."

The visual had some appeal. "I don't. Uhm."

"You're not _that_ straight. I don't want anything from you that you'd be opposed to."

What he meant to say was, 'no.' What came out was, "anything?"

The smile got a little brighter, a little more genuine. "One of the highlights of being on earth was desire fulfillment. I could help you unwind a bit. You could help me forget about Hell for tonight. It's a win-win."

Dan stood there too long, indecisive. "There's just so much happening. That's not something I can even think about as an option - a choice. As much as I'm happy to have that much of one, I was just in my...Hell Loop or whatever, this morning. I've gone from not being sure I'm in a dream, to finding out I _died_ and went to _Hell, _and _now_ it _feels_ like I'm..._alive?_ I guess. Does...does that go away?" Somehow a potential loss of awareness just seemed scarier than actual Hell.

"Well, if it's any consolation Abel did just fine, all things considered, and he was one of the first humans to come up from Hell. Granted, he's back here _again_, but overall, no harm done, I believe."

_Nope. NopeNopeNopeNope._ "So, I'm alive, sort of. I'm in Hell, and as far as I can tell, I still have senses. Maybe it really is the Matrix."

"I'm the only thing here that's even close to Morpheus - but it's not a terrible comparison - Hell is actually a physical realm of sorts, but if a living human came here without any help they wouldn't survive long. The physics are a bit different; the ambient temperature alone would be suffocating, possibly literally."

He rubbed his face. "If I see a white rabbit, I'm running the other direction. I don't care if it has fangs _or _a timepiece."

Lucifer tried another route, "how about you we at least get you a bath - that should help sort you out."

He was so tired. "Dare I ask if it's water or a boiling cauldron of something unspeakable?"

"It's _my_ bath - nice and normal. Follow me, I need it too. I had to destroy another demon while I was out today and I'm pretty sure I got some of it under my nails."


	7. Almost Normal

He hesitated, mostly just to see if he could resist automatically following a command no matter how offhand - but his skin was nearly literally crawling and he felt utterly disgusting. He got up and followed.

Dan was expecting a room with a tub in it - like an actual bathroom. The first connected room turned out to be a full Roman bath the size of his living room. His old living room. He wondered if Chloe rescued his house plants. He wondered if he'd ever see anything green ever again - aside from random demon hides, that is. He pushed the thought away with an effort.

The water looked scaldingly hot - steam was rising from it, though it did seem to be actual water with only a few flakes of ash floating on top of it. The room even sort of smelled like warm spices, not quite cologne-y but at least the ash smell wasn't as prevalent here.

He looked up to see Lucifer ditching his trousers - no underwear - and strolling straight down into it via some submerged steps. Dan privately swore to himself that Lucifer looked better built than the last time he'd seen him shirtless on earth.

_On earth. _That was _never_ not going to sound stupid in his head.

Lucifer caught him watching his ass vanish under the surface of the steaming bath. He just grinned and sank under the water, coming up face first after a long moment and leaning against the far tiled edge. He stretched his arms out, long and lean, draped along the edge.

Watching him with a very Luciferish leer. Dan realized then he must have been staring.

_To hell with it. _Dan ungracefully ditched his ruined clothes and slid into the water on his side of the tiled bath. It wasn't enormous, but it wasn't so small that they had to share any of the space either. Eight or so regular people could fit in it comfortably. _Fuck_ it was hot though.

Dan concentrated on adjusting to the water; it was decidedly _too hot_, but he hadn't ever been one to wait on the edge while his calves got used to it. After a few minutes, it seemed to be cooler, or he was better able to ignore the temperature. Another minute or so and he was even able to ignore _Lucifer_ and relax.

He made ample use of a harsh smelling bar of soap he found on the edge of the rim. It had a gritty texture that felt glorious on his skin. When it felt like his entire top layer of skin had been abraded away, he relaxed.

As much as he dreaded prying open the horse's mouth, he asked, "where do you even get soap here?"

Lucifer smirked. "Remember how it was made in the olden days?"

"Not _that_ olden. My grand-nana had something like it. Uhm. Lye?"

"Ash, rendered fat, some brimstone for exfoliating."

He looked up at a falling flake and shuddered. "And the fat?"

"Hell doesn't have as many demons as it used to."

Dan dropped the bar of soap and stood with a splash. "Dude!"

Lucifer just grinned. "Kidding, Daniel. I wouldn't wash with it either, were it the case. Some of the first things I brought back to Hell with me were soaps and spices. That one isn't exactly from Bed Bath & Beyond, but if you let it dissolve, I'll take it out of your pay." He was still smiling impishly as he spoke, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Or, you could just keep standing there and let me ogle you."

He flushed and lowered his hips back into the water self-consciously."Seriously?" He patted around on the bench for the soap. It happened to be the same drab color as the tiles, which wasn't helping.

"It's not like I have anything nicer to look at."

Dan rolled his eyes. "Right. Nice to know I'm good for _something_ here."

"If you want to be put to work, I'm sure I can find you a task. Scrubbing my back, for example."

Dan's fingers had _just_ clutched around the bar under the water when he squeezed too hard and it shot off somewhere into the middle. He gave his bath mate a sour look. "Pass."

Lucifer let him founder for another minute before taking pity. "Leave it. It was the last of the older stuff anyway. I have better in the supply closet."

Well, at least he _felt_ clean. Lucifer didn't look like he was going anywhere just yet, so he followed his lead and tried to chill out, closing his eyes and letting his head rest on the hard edge. It wasn't completely comfortable but the hot water made up for it.

Something in his bones sensed it was...safe...here. Something unwound in his core, somehow recognizing that he wasn't in the cell Lucifer pulled him from, for real. Somehow knowing that he'd spent some amount of unfortunate time back there, but not recalling it exactly. He laughed to himself, bubbling up uncontrolled as a bark.

Lucifer eyed him. "Hmm?"

"You pulled me from the lion's den. My...Hell loop."

He was awarded a small smirk. "Daniel, you're still in the menagerie, and it's full of worse kinds of flesh-eating beasts than lions. It's arguably safer back in there than out here. Other than the kinks with your cell, anyway."

"At least the zookeeper tolerates me. What kinks?"

"Not the fun kind. _Usually,_ anyway. This one time your Hell Loop turned into - well, not a _Heavenly_ experience, exactly, but it looked...more like one of my earthly orgies than a torture chamber. That made for very interesting viewing as well. And no, I didn't participate. Not with _you_ anyway, it wouldn't have been polite. However, since I was there already, I didn't see the harm in hanging around for a bit."

That did sound...intriguing at least. "Already?"

"Granted, the loop was already periodically off-kilter, but you or Hell put the image of me in there with you. And no, the fake me wasn't directly involved."

"Why don't I remember that? I still have bits and pieces just not of a _sex party_."

Lucifer made a face. "_Sex party_ is also a stretch. The real you wouldn't have enjoyed it. For now, it's safer for both of us for me to repress all your memories of your loop, as much as possible. The bits you do remember won't be the worst ones, at least."

"How about the teeth falling out thing?"

"Believe me, while incredibly creepy, not the worst. That's actually a very common nightmare for humans. I'd be surprised if you didn't have it before coming here, at least once."

He bit his tongue lightly. "More like, teeth ripping themselves out of my face and running away across the floor."

"_That_ one is a little worse. I've seen parts of your regular loop - it's _still_ not the worst. The things you react most strongly to are when innocents are hurt and you can't help them. When you yourself were...tormented, you endured it. I kept altering your loop. Please understand that I don't control the loops to any great degree. Even though none of it is real, I walked in once to see things happening to your spawn and I nearly - well, a couple of demons died that day out of sheer spite. Demons aren't supposed to visit you, so it wasn't _them_ hurting a fake small girl, but regardless, they were in the wrong place and time."

"_I'd never-"_

"No, but you... took over your loop and began murdering the phantoms who were. It was rather cathartic, actually. That was when I first modified your loop so that your daughter doesn't appear often. Then I made other modifications, but it must be clashing with something in the way Hell works." he gestured vaguely at Dan with one very long arm. "I never did it before, not to that extent. Well, I should specify that I haven't altered Hell loops in _favor_ of the prisoner very often. Once in a great while, but never more than a couple of tweaks."

He sighed. "After I found out you arrived, I didn't visit much. Just once when you turned up, but it was difficult to watch. Sometimes I stopped your loop completely, and I let you just be by yourself, but that didn't actually help. Hell itself seemed to want to...interact with you, for good or ill. I had planned on moving you elsewhere anyway, but Gaudium forced my hand."

Dan wanted to ask how long it had been, but he wasn't ready to put voice to that question. "Move me?"

"I was still working on it. I might have been able to glamour you so you looked like a demon to other demons and could at least be free to do as you please, but that runs the risk of permanently damaging your psyche. Demons aren't _people_ and it took years for Maze to acclimatize to earth. _T__his__, _right now, wasn't my plan but it might be the best option available to us at the moment."

Dan rubbed his face, groaning. He had no footing on which to complain. The flashes he did retain from his loop were haunting enough. At least here, he had his mind back, he could separate the memories of his life from what Hell showed him. He still had his memories of life, of hugs from Trixie, of donuts and improv nights.

He let the heat soak into him and he took a full breath of scented air through his nose. It cleared out his sinuses that were still a little clogged from his earlier breakdown. He copied Lucifer, falling under the surface. It was no ocean on a good surfing day, but the water still behaved like water; it closed up over his him, and pushed against his ears, muffling the world outside, leaving him completely alone in his head.

He floated in place, gripping the edge of the tiled seat under him, holding himself under for as long as he could. He squeezed his eyes closed. Naked and nearly motionless, he crossed his legs and could make himself believe he was in a womb, dark and comforting and familiar. Familiar-ish. Apart. Away.

Too warm for the ocean, and salt-free, but he could lose himself here. He'd always loved the ocean, the water, any water. It was the closest thing to flying he could have had, swimming free under the surface or riding above it. It always felt like it loved him back.

Maybe he could drown himself and stop all of it. Maybe oblivion would care for his company more than Hell did. He blew out his air in a slow stream, emptying his lungs so he didn't have to grip as hard to hold himself under. When he became more aware of his body than of the water, he pushed against the tile to come up.

For a second, the surface was further away than he thought.

For a second, he panicked, then the water parted like the Red Sea, letting him out again and he took a gasping breath.

For a second, he thought the water wasn't going to _let _him back out.

He shook his head. Some deeper part of him that existed in his subconscious, even without a real body, wanted him to live. In Hell, apparently. He wiped the water from his face, took slower breaths and made himself calm.

Dan had no illusions that Hell could be escaped. Even Lucifer had returned. And Abel, apparently. Lucifer, though, might leave again. If that happened, he would have to survive on his own, which meant he needed friends or at least contacts like he had back at the precinct, demons who didn't view him as a snack or slave. He had known people like Gaudium, people who could be bought. He had nothing to offer, yet, but maybe that could change.

He had Lucifer's favor.

Maybe he could use that, agree to voluntarily sleep with him for -

_No. Bad Dan. _Just being under Lucifer's protection should be enough for now. No counting chickens before they hatched. He barely even had any eggs.

Golden geese danced across the inside of his mind.

"God."

"Nope." Lucifer's lips made a popping sound. "Wrong deity."

He laughed again, more easily. "And now that response actually makes sense."

Lucifer's dark eyes had closed, chin tilted up and his head resting back against the tile. His easy breathing making his chest rise and fall slowly at the surface of the water. If Lucifer had any hair product at all in Hell, it failed to contain his spiraling curls fighting gravity and water, springing up in a playful contest with the environment.

Dan carefully didn't wonder what they felt like.

They enjoyed several minutes of silence until Lucifer started humming to himself.

Dan couldn't place it, but it reminded him of home, so he didn't say anything or interrupt. If the Devil felt like channeling a radio station, Dan was absolutely not going to stop him. Several seconds into it, he identified it as a _Panic! At The Disco_ song.

He sank further to his neck and chirped in at the chorus to _High Hopes_. He heard Lucifer startle a little, but he kept humming until the end of the song.

Dan asked, "you know, you always had a good voice. Do you sing here?"

He didn't open his eyes. "I try not to. The demons will think I've gone mad. I can't let my guard down around them for a _second_. Hell went to..._Hell_ while I was gone, but as it rebuilds, the demons will get stronger again, even more on alert, harder to control until I have to assert my power when they inevitably try to rise up."

"They're not human, are they?"

"The Lilim are half-human, sort of. Mazikeen and her sisters. Lilith was the first partner to Adam, but she Fell and was replaced by Eve. She consorted with a serpent - a dragon in truth - and bore several children of mixed blood. Maze is one of those, She was invaluable and I relied on her far too much here. Now I don't have anyone."

He said that last bit like absolute fact.

Dan liked Maze. "I always thought she seemed crazy strong. I fought with her a couple of times, you know. She's impressive."

Lucifer opened one eye a slit. "I'd say - 'but you're still alive' - except you aren't, but that's not how you died."

"Does it ever get normal? For you I mean? I remember you told everyone you left Hell for good. What happened?"

"Demons broke free of Hell, possessing the bodies of several recently deceased humans. They tried to steal Charlie."

"What? _Why?_"

He cracked open the other eye and just looked at him. "why, which part? I do believe you remember my brother."

"Charlie your _nephew?_ Wait. Amenadiel is really your brother? Huh. But they didn't get him? So you came back here to protect him. Wow."

"Is that so surprising?"

"Not for _you, _it's not, I guess. But for Satan? Are you stuck here again, like you were before?"

"No more vacations. Not until Hell is back under control again. Then I imagine it will be the same routine as before. I get out for a week every so often, maybe every twenty earth years or so and someone takes me back. Used to be Amenadiel, but things have changed for him, so my money is on Remiel now."

"How many siblings do you _have_?"

"Fewer now than I used to."

Lucifer looked away very obviously done with that topic. He started to float a little, parts of his body coming closer to the surface.

Dan licked his lips and looked away. He tried to lie back and relax again, putting his arms up and trying hard not to think too much in general. He risked a peek over at Lucifer, who, of course, caught him at it and grinned triumphantly. "Told you."

"So I've been to one male strip club. So sue me."

"Oh, do tell, Daniel."

He hesitated, but it wasn't the worst story to tell. Fun even, when told with a few beers in him. And also not in Hell. "My sister's bachelorette party. We were always really close. I didn't get one - a bachelor party, that is - for various reasons, none of which were Chloe's fault, either. Anyway, Sofia said I had to come to _hers_. She just didn't tell me it'd be at a strip club. Swore up and down that it wouldn't be, in fact."

"In LA?"

"Yeah. She and her husband used to live in the area."

"What was the name of the place? I've probably been there."

"Because of course, you've visited every strip club in LA."

"Visited, danced a few times. The ones that cater to the gay scene are the best, in my humble opinion."

"Your opinion has never been humble." But Dan went red with the visuals his brain supplied anyway. which didn't require much imagination at present. "It was something like 'Bow Ties'. I thought it was formal wear. It wasn't. The only thing they wore was - well. Ties and speedos."

Lucifer laughed, and Dan could have sworn he felt Hell itself getting a little less heavy. The Devil slipped under the water again, coming all the way back up to standing and shaking his hair out. Dan kept his eyes above waist level. Lucifer smirked anyway. "I think I'm about cooked. You're looking a little red yourself. A bit more together too."

"Yeah." Dan didn't think twice about taking the pro-offered hand though. "Fine, you were right. It's the brain part I'm still working on."


	8. Quantum State

_Cold air pricked at his raw wounds. Something itched. Something bled. The Devil and his demon had trussed him up like a turkey and shackled him to a pipe. Or maybe he had already been here when they came in through the door and someone else tied him up. Doors? The rope burned his wrists like poison ivy. _

_Itchy. Itchy. Itchy. Son of a-_

_His head throbbed painfully and the memory wasn't clear. Except it was the present. Not a memory. What looked like - what __**was**_ _a warehouse a moment ago now became the hanger where Lucifer_ _had been_ _shot. Doors hung open, wide as a cavern, to the moonless night. The lights overhead cut harsh into the shadowed floor. He was spotlit under one, caging him within a razor-edged circle of light._

_Lucifer loomed over him now, larger than life, Maze beside him, each under their own lights like a bad spy movie. He choked down a laugh. Dan looked up from his knees, rigid in his resistance. He didn't understand why the woman - Mazikeen - kept hitting him, but Lucifer hadn't moved to stop her. Had not moved at all since the...something. She had stopped for now, her clenched knuckles running, bleeding his blood._

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

_They had been partners once. Each of them, partners in crime and partners in work. Even Trixie had loved them both. It wasn't even a competition - Dan didn't try to keep her from them, accepted it as part of his life, their lives. What happened? He thought he at least got along with Maze. He had never been Lucifer's biggest fan, certainly, but this?_

_Dan spit blood off to the side, then stared back steadily, digging deep for his reserves - mental and physical. "I don't know what your stupid game is and I don't care. Chloe will find me, and she won't be happy to find her friends and her partner beating me up. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to see the look on her face when she walks in and sees you two doing this to me."_

_Maze dropped to one knee to look him in the eye. Her thumb rubbed her fingers, slick with blood. "That's cute. You think she gives a shit about you?"_

_"I doubt she does. She sure as Hell shouldn't. But __**she**_ _thought you were better than this. Both of you."_

_Lucifer __**flickered**_ _and vanished in place for a second. Dan was only vaguely aware that was probably weird. He kept his gaze level with her black eyes. "She's gonna arrest you both for this. Lucifer, at least, will be out of my hair forever when she finds out what you've done. You want me put away for something? Do that. That she would understand."_

_Lucifer's body stood rigidly, his hands moved behind his back, clean of blood. He spoke, "is that what you want? Me out of your life?"_

_"After this? I guess you're finally showing your true colors, even if I don't know why you picked __**now**__. I never wanted you in my life to begin with. I don't blame you for the fact I lost - let go - of Chloe. That's all on me. I blame you for distracting her. I blame you for winding her up in your utter nonsense and keeping her from having a real police partner. I blame you for holding her back, even if you don't believe you meant to. But now that's all done. If you don't kill me here and now, she's going to find out. If you do murder me, she'll find you eventually, because that's how __**good**_ _she is." Dan smiled, blood on his lip. "Thank God for small favors."_

_Because God had something to do with this. Right. _

The Devil nodded, slowly, "yes, she is. She deserves better than any of us."

_Mazikeen addressed Lucifer over her shoulder, barely breaking eye contact. "You shouldn't have left me behind. I could have been dealing with him this whole time. You wouldn't be having this problem now."_

_"No. No, we ought to leave him be. He's right. The Detective wouldn't like this. I'll have to come up with something else."_

_"What else? You won't let anyone play with him. His Hell Loop keeps breaking. You don't pay attention to the whispered comments about how Hell is-"_

_"That's enough."_

_"You don't have anyone here who will tell you the truth. That's a problem. My Lord."_

_Dan's throat worked. "The truth is, Chloe will have your heads. Trixie-"_

_"Enough. Your spawn is no longer my concern. Nor yours. Neither of us will see her again."_

_His stomach filled with ice. "What do you mean? Have you done something-"_

_"No. She's fine."_

_Maze stood fluidly, turning her back on Dan. "Hmph. He's Hell-addled. Don't pay so much attention to him. He did this to himself after all."_

_Dan looked from one to the other. "What are you talking about?" He took in his surroundings a little more thoroughly, starting to focus, "what happened to the warehouse you dragged me into? Where am I?"_

_Lucifer ignored him. "I'm beginning to wonder how true that is. Daniel wasn't the worst of them, by a long shot. The Detective clearly saw something in him for a good long while, as humans measure it. If he does deserve to be here, it's only by the skin of his teeth."_

"_When has that ever made a difference? To you or us? He's here, that means he deserves it."_

_He sounded frustrated with her, hands going to his suit pants pockets. "Yes, Maze, I can see he's here. You shouldn't be. I should have paid more attention over the years to souls on the cusp, ones like Daniel who made me wonder before now if the system is broken. LIke you, I assumed they were here for damning themselves, that they came to be here through some fault of their own - something they did to deserve this. I'm only now starting to see this is something that has to be adjusted."_

_"Humans don't make good choices. Give them just the tiniest temptation and they leap for it like starving lions on an antelope."_

_Lucifer didn't respond to her, looking down at Dan. "Sounds like a factory design flaw to me. Not a reason to chuck it in the garbage. Dad should have done something about it from the get-go."_

"_You aren't your Father."_

_His jaw clenched. There was a long pause. He repeated himself, "Daniel shouldn't be here."_

_"That wasn't your decision, so don't worry about it. You're back home and you have a job to do. God made it perfectly clear where you're supposed to be for all eternity, didn't He?"_

_He snapped at her, and even Dan flinched. "Hell was never my home! Neither was Heaven. I don't have one at all any longer. Just because I'm here again doesn't mean I have to like it."_

_Dan swallowed on a sticky throat. Words began to penetrate. "What's here? Is this Hell? Am I dead? Are you dead?"_

_Lucifer continued talking to Maze, ignoring him. "Torturing souls isn't my job anymore. I'll run this place, but that's all, Maze. And I won't have you making side-trips to cells when you are here, any of them. It's not __**your**_ _job anymore."_

"_Oh? Have you hired a new Head Torturer? I haven't seen any want ads up around here. Your estate seems a little understaffed."_

"_It's a place I sleep and do paperwork. Nothing more. And no, I hadn't gotten around to it."_

"_You can't keep putting it off. You need-"_

"_Do NOT tell me how to run my domain, Mazikeen. I did fine before I found you and I'll be fine now."_

_"Whatever. Chloe asked me if he's here. Amenadiel apparently told her he didn't go to heaven. I was just trying to do you a professional courtesy while I was here and checking for her."_

_Lowly, almost whispering, he said, "you cannot tell the Detective about him."_

_"Why not? It's the truth, isn't it? Aren't you alllll about honesty now, My Lord?"_

_"Just, don't. She doesn't need this on her conscience_ _on top of everything else she insists on taking on__."_

_Dan's knees hurt. "Hey! Assholes! __W__here am I? Where is Chloe?"_

_Maze glowered. "What do you want me to say?"_

_Lucifer looked away from her, from them both, his gaze drifting on nothing. "Not the_ _**truth**__._ _Neither to her n__or_ _to_ _the spawn."_

_This time his world shifted __**violently**__. He was standing, uncuffed. Sirens erupted into existence around him - police, ambulance, fire trucks, everything reverberated in his ear drums to the point of nearly deafening him. Too many to sort out. Lights and sound. Gunshots. A man in front of him raising a gun. The man whose brother he shot. Was that even right? Something wasn't right. The brother had raised a weapon at him, he had to shoot. Had to. Why did Dan think he had been running? Running and shooting over his shoulder, maybe?_

_Bullets struck his chest, impacting with deadly force. He was thrown off his feet and he couldn't get any air into his lungs. Blood welled up, filling his throat. He could feel wet bubbles._

_Trixie screamed - she and Chloe went down. Followed by Ella, shot while running for Trixie._

_It was a massacre._

_They died, one by one, because he couldn't get back up off his ass and protect them, take out the gunman. Because he was shot first. He couldn't even raise his own firearm from the ground. His hands wouldn't respond to his commands, his fingers twitched, numb. _

_Malcolm stepped into his line of sight, standing over him, close. _

_"You did this. This is your fault."_

_Linda fell. Charlotte. Maze. Like dominoes._

_"You did this."_

_He couldn't argue. It was true. He couldn't draw a breath. His lungs weren't working anymore._

_Malcolm raised his gun and pointed it right at Dan's face._


	9. Waking

_(This is the first chapter with smut it in, skip the middle if you aren't here for smut)_

_Snap_.

Awake. But where? The dream disintegrated into useless fragments. Chasing after the bits and pieces like scooping water with a sieve.

Room black and bile rising. Heart pounding in his ears loud enough to wake the dead. _That_ thought broke him and he didn't even know why. He couldn't breathe. That was important, he thought. The dead waking. Had it happened? Motion followed his head, or the other way around.

Impossibly strong hands held him down on his back. He could move his neck, but could see jack shit in the suffocating darkness. _Who? Where?_ He tried to throw himself against the iron grip but it was like shoving back against a skin covered brick wall and just as useless. Had the Devil come to claim his due after all, despite what he had said? Weight on him, over him, heavy body, new waves of pure panic and adrenaline. _Fight_ _teeth and nails. Nails and teeth. Things of voodoo dolls, nightmares, talismans. People grew a second set of teeth. Could souls do the same? All the fucked up shit you did as a dumb-ass teen, could that too be pulled out like weeds and grown in anew? Replaced with adult teeth and adult decisions?_

He sucked in a harsh breath, starving for air. His blood buzzed with the rush of oxygen or whatever it was. His blood was leaving him, replaced by air, draining in pints, in impossible quantities. Shots fired. He _pushed_ anyway. It did nothing. Didn't matter, had to fight. Or flight. Either. Both. _MOVE, DAN._

_Black hair. Gold hair. Tied and loose, on the ground. The smell of gunfire. Everyone turning to look at the shooter instead of running or drooping to the ground in the defensive moves they were all told to do. stop, drop and roll. No. That was for fire. Still better than staring at the man with the gun. _

_STOP BEING TARGETS, DAMMIT._

_They were on the ground now. Strands of hair in waves and curls dipped in blood and-_

"_Daniel!"_

He stopped. The _command _behind the word overtook him more so than the word. His _name_. The version his asshole friend used instead of _Dan_. Daniel. _Judged by God. _He giggled.

A head of black curls stood starkly silhouetted against glowing lamplight in the shape of a wild crown, like unruly weeds (he could make it out now, or maybe he just Devil-commanded it to light up, like he just spoke to Dan.) There was a name attached to the man too but it took him a few seconds to remember it. His rescuer. No knight though. _Captor_. _Owner. _"Lucifer?"

The hands let go, leaving white marks on his bare arms. Lucifer sat up, moving to the edge of the bed with a dry chuckle. "The demons will certainly believe I've been doing a number on you. You were, unsurprisingly, having a nightmare. A rather violent one, if I'm not mistaken." He left space between them, not touching at all anymore. Dan drew his knees up with a jerk, making a shield of flesh.

Lucifer must have gotten up at some point in the middle of the night. Now, he wore a black bathrobe that had to be from the penthouse, silk with red lapels. He had worn pants to bed, no shirt.

Dan had fallen asleep, sure that he would not. He had meant to ask about the lack of scars when Lucifer climbed into bed facing away, but his brain did a - _nope, we're not opening _that _specific can of worms right now_ \- so he stopped staring at Lucifer's shoulders, turning away to look at the cold fireplace until he had drifted off.

He really had tried the floor first, but Lucifer wouldn't allow him to take anything off the bed. However, the floor was slate and he was pretty sure there was something with a lot of legs crawling around under the bed that hadn't been there before and it didn't sound particularly friendly.

In the end, he had fallen asleep on the mattress, finally not thinking about sharing a bed with his _owner_, only to plunge straight into nightmares as soon as his eyes closed.

Dan buried his face in his hands. "I had the worst dream, man. I think you and Maze were there and... but I was in Hell and Trixie died and then everyone _else_ got shot-" He broke off, looking up into the darkness and feeling the uneven mattress under them. "Fuck. We're still in Hell aren't we?"

"Well, the good news is, your spawn is very much alive, last I heard, along with likely anyone else you saw in your dream."

For some reason, he shuddered, _knowing_ that one of the people in his dream was dead and it was a good thing, but not who or why. "Good. If it were between me or Trixie, I'd take her place here, you know? In Hell."

He tilted his head. "You would, wouldn't you? Well, the choice isn't real in any case, or yours to make. You made your choices in life."

"I didn't _know_, though. I mean, surely not everyone who didn't go to church is going to Hell, right? And I _went_ to church."

"I guess the lessons didn't stick, did they? Oddly enough, _church_ isn't a requirement at all. Any number of Buddhists made it to Heaven. I asked Amenadiel about it once, since I don't exactly hear from the Silver City all that often."

Tears began to well up all over again, a cold ache pervading what he would have called his soul. "I'm never going to see her again. Either of them."

Lucifer reached up and awkwardly patted his shoulder. "Yes. Well. Neither am I. Always knew it was a matter of time for me. At least you had the _chance_."

"Ella won't make her way down here, thank…whatever. Dr. Linda either. How do you deal with it?"

"Not well. I can be happy they'll never come here, as well as, well...mourn their loss from my life. It doesn't get any easier, not with Hell as a constant reminder." Lucifer stood and leaned over his desk, pulling a square bottle from a hidden drawer. He poured a couple of drinks and offered Dan one. Amber liquid in glass tumblers, but not like the ones he'd had in the penthouse - these were smoke tinted. The liquid burned going down, spreading warmth through his chest. He let out a low breath, tasting the smell of it as it left his lungs. Compared to earlier, this stuff was practically honey. He sniffed it. "Scotch?"

Lucifer swirled his drink and sipped it with a look of sad distaste. "Probably was at some point - hard to tell once it's been here a while. Enjoy it, I don't have much of even this here. The better liquor is even harder to come by than this."

_God. Can this get any more fucked up?_

God didn't answer.

Dan drained it, held the glass cupped in his hands. He handed it back. He thought about Lucifer sharing what he had without thought of recompense. "Thank you."

He curled up on his side, letting the reminder of home burn in his stomach. Home. Not anymore. "Should I even ask which of my family members are here in Hell?"

"Best not." Lucifer put the bottle away and sat down on the edge of the bed again. He ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm really not very good at this sort of thing; Trying to be nice. Not here. Wasn't terribly good at it upstairs either."

He crossed his arms tightly, holding himself. "Then pick something you _are _good at."

Lucifer shrugged in the long pause, tilted Dan's head up and kissed him.

It started soft.

The shock of his pressing lips gave way to the realization of what was being _offered_, not _taken. _This was entirely for Dan, not Lucifer. It let him yield, accept the physical comfort on offer. This, right here, wasn't potential _sex,_ it definitely wasn't _love_, it was contact and support - a need fulfilled to them both. His heart dropped to his stomach and slowly came back up for air, lighter but pounding.

Lucifer didn't push, didn't ask for more. Lucifer let him decide if he wanted more.

Dan wound his hands into the edges of the robe and pulled him down completely. The boiling desperation of everything bore down on him like Lucifer's now welcome weight and he just wanted to vanish into nothing. He took the second option, the only option, which was Lucifer, who, thank all gods listening, didn't comment on it as he pressed his body against Dan's.

The bed creaked in protest under their stacked mass. He pulled on Lucifer's hips, sliding them together, hard and needy. He basked in the weight and warmth of him, drowning in it but needing it all the same. Lucifer opened his legs, wrapping them around Dan's hips, holding him hard. Dan reached between them, pulling the robe tie out, and pushing the garment off his shoulders. He was hard all over where Dan had only experienced softness in his partners. Lucifer's muscles smoothed under his hands, his body seemingly leaping for the skin on skin contact.

Maybe he was. Maybe Lucifer hadn't been touched since coming back to Hell. Twenty years between visits, he said. Dan had dry spells in the past, but nothing like that. Even with an eternal lifespan, that seemed like a lot of time with no one in between. He paused to look up into endless, wide eyes, and it finally hit him how _lonely_ Lucifer must get down here. Dan certainly hadn't seen a demon yet (in Hell) that any but another demon would want to take to bed, and none he would consider confiding in. It had only been a day, but he thought he'd seen quite a bit.

Lucifer dropped his robe to the bed and shoved his hand down the front of Dan's sleep pants. He groaned, pushing himself against Lucifer's hot, possessive grip. His pants tore at the waist and Lucifer was suddenly mere seconds away from riding his cock.

Dan, hard under Devilish hands, was also dry as a bone. As much as he was in the moment, he had at least some concern of pulling skin in a not fun way. "Hey, don't you need anything? For lube?"

He didn't. He pulled one of his long legs out from between Dan's and took Dan's cock in a single stroke, with a heady moan that made every hair on his body stand on end.

The lack of lubrication should have been an issue, but it wasn't. Heat and pressure held him. "Holy fuck, that's hot."

Lucifer made a face. Because of course he did. "My ass is _not_ holy."

"My dick begs to differ."

Lucifer laughed that musical laugh of his and slowed his pace, squeezing around Dan with less urgency than a moment ago. He enjoyed where he was, moving with Dan's hips, letting Dan lead, fuck him as he wanted. Lucifer was literally along for the ride. Dan had time now to work his rhythm, _with _\- instead of fighting against the pile of muscle on top of him. He'd never had someone so insanely tall in this, or any other position.

Dan should have felt vulnerable this way, under his longer, stronger body. He had no expectations, didn't have time for them. Above him, deep eyes softened, meeting his and shining like the reflection of stars. It was so hard not to feel a connection of longing need. The _heat_ of him sank on him, amazingly comforting in his enjoyment of Dan.

_Lucifer. Lightbringer. Son of the Morning. Most Beautiful One._

_Yeah. In this moment, he could believe all that. _

_Jesus he felt good_.

He didn't voice that. Not the Jesus part anyway. Or the more poetic, _romantic _sounding stuff.

Dan spread his open hands up Lucifer's hard thighs, reaching to claim his hips. His skin was nearly hairless, smooth and pushing back with urgent pressure and hungry moans.

With a shock, Dan realized Lucifer wasn't even trying to _get off_. He quickly closed a hand around Lucifer's hardness, his skin silky over stiffened flesh. Lucifer arched, thrusting, jaw unclenching with an unmistakably _happy _sound.

Dan looked lower, where they connected, partly obscured by the pants pulling between them. The mark was all but hidden by the twisted fabric. Lucifer rolled his hips with a low gasp, bottoming out against Dan's erection. Dan spit in his hand to slick up Lucifer's cock.

He couldn't help but be pleased that his hard worked-for body image followed him to Hell. He thought about what he looked like when he first achieved the body he wanted, younger and stronger. He pushed in a steady rhythm, starting to lose coherent thought.

Lucifer purred approval. At what, exactly, Dan wasn't sure of and didn't care. He just worked the angle until he could use his ab workouts to his advantage, thrusting up into him, hard and at a consistent pace, trying to draw out more of those sounds.

It was work and pleasure, and it was good.

He gripped the headboard for better leverage, finding something solid to wrap his unoccupied hand around. Lucifer leaned over him, holding his wrist, not too hard, but enough for Dan to _feel_ it. It wasn't a _restraint_, exactly. The heat of his palm coursed through his skin with reassuring pressure.

A moan escaped him, a needy noise he wasn't particularly proud of. Lucifer enjoyed it, responding with his own. He took over from Dan, his fist going around himself, jacking himself sensually, a wild, sexual grin giving way to a loss of control that made Dan buck harder. Somewhere in there, he hit something that made Lucifer gasp, so he did it again and again until the other spilled hot and wet on his chest in hard pulses.

He crested hard, pulsing against and into his - whatever Lucifer was to him. Lucifer clenched over him, literally wringing his orgasm out of him for as long as it would go. He stayed like that, panting, the almost ever-present smile coming over him, like he had back on earth. He saw it for what it was, now, after everything. A true smile of enjoyment of literally _anything_ that wasn't Hell. He found himself smiling back, infected by the _life_ that had come back to his eyes. Because of him. A moment of distraction, maybe, but one that reminded Lucifer of good times.

Dan easily got one of his wrists loose, grabbed him and pulled him down hard, kissing him, surprising them both with the impulse. "Stay like this."

Lucifer lay sprawled over him, the weight of his body covering him like a living blanket. It was exactly what he needed. Soft and hard parts touched, nicely heavy.

Apparently, it was what Lucifer needed too. "Mmm. Yes, you make an excellent mattress. Much better than the one under us."

"You make a decent blanket."

A few more minutes quietly passed but for their breathing evening out. There was a scuffle outside and someone bumped the wall by the door, then immediately took off running.

"Bloody Hell!"

Dan didn't want Lucifer to leave. He threw both arms around his waist. "Stay. Please."

Lucifer grumbled. "Not like I don't know who it was anyway. Damn, these walls are too thin. I may have to make my entire suite off-limits."

He let his hands wander over delicious skin that shivered under his touch. His back was _long_, he brushed his fingers down Lucifer's vertebrae, counting them down to his tailbone. Dan chuckled.

"What?"

"You really don't have a tail. Or hooves."

"No horns either. I do have wings. Two different pairs, actually."

He touched Lucifer's shoulder blades. "You used to have scars, didn't you?"

"I had my wings removed. Not something to be advertised to the demons, incidentally. They're a symbol of my rule. I intended to stay on earth, and I meant it. Buggers grew back a few times. And no, you can't see them."

Dan was terrible at taking a hint. "How come?" He ran his thumb over the little patch of soft skin at the top of his ass crack.

"Because I said so. And because I prefer to...look like this."

Because he could, Dan kissed him again, cupping his ass. It was surprisingly _easy, _in thought and form_. _"You look good this way."

"I know. You look good on your back. And that's just an observation, not a Lord slash commoner thing."

Maybe Lucifer wasn't thinking more into it than a careless remark, but it meant something to Dan that he _didn_'t go with a master and slave comparison.

The thought was no less a bucket of cold water. "What am I to you?"

Lucifer nuzzled his neck. "Right this second, you're my extremely comfortable resting spot."

"Dude."

"You want to have that talk _right now_? Fine. You're my very much welcome distraction. If you don't want to do this again, I won't coerce you. However, I suddenly want to sleep _on_ you for the foreseeable future. It's quite pleasant, at least for me. Here, in my rooms, we can do anything we want. Outside, your status is, well…"

"Complicated?"

"That's a good word for it. I _do _feel suitably guilty for taking advantage of you. You _are_ currently my property."

"Hey, I more than gave my consent, if you're worried about that."

He made a frustrated noise. "Even if the first time I have to treat you badly outside these walls doesn't put you off, it will soon."

"You're really worried?"

"I'll be cold, uncaring. I can't afford to show weakness. Not for anyone. It's bad enough I'm making an exception for you, but I've had 'pets' before, so it's not out of the ordinary."

Dan held him. He enjoyed the good part of _right now_, ignoring his deeper voices telling him not to hold on too tightly. "But?"

"This won't end well for you. You're stuck here, as I am, with fewer options and no way out, at least not without me. You're utterly dependent on my public goodwill. I can't keep you at a distance - for your own safety - and I can't pretend I don't care. I shouldn't even let you know I care, but either way, it feels like I'm only adding to your ultimate suffering."

The bitterness crawled back on insect feet, "Isn't that why I'm here?"

Lucifer propped up on an elbow, started to speak, then drew back. He touched the side of Dan's face with a slow swipe of his thumb, next to his eye. "That's odd. Didn't you have crow's feet?"

"I've had sun lines since I was 30, why?"

"They're gone."

Dan drew back.

_Is this another loop? Am I back in my cell? Was Lucifer telling the truth when he said he had to move me? Did he move me in the night while I slept? _Scared, he put his hands on Lucifer's shoulders, between them. "Are you here?"

He got an odd, bird-like look in return. "Where else would I be? This is my room."

"I don't...do _this_." Panic. It could be another type of torture - fall for - no - _want_ someone he can't and shouldn't have, never wanted before. The one person who can keep him safe. Hell would come barreling in to take that away too. And he would be _aware_ of it.

Lucifer moved his body off to the side, muttering under his breath about why he shouldn't mess with the system. Out loud, he said, "Daniel, you're not in your cell."

"How do I know that?"


End file.
